


Windows

by blueorangecrush



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Brief mentions of RL family members, Career Ending Injuries, Concussions, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Sad Russian Hipsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush
Summary: Kolya's grandmother used to say that dreams were windows into other worlds.





	Windows

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [PuckingRare2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> "There is a universe where they are happy. It is not this one."
> 
> If you're curious about why these two or about the Russian Hipsters reference, watch [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN3PxG5potk). I miss these two.

Kolya’s grandmother used to tell him that dreams were windows into other worlds. 

If that was true, this world was one where he’d gotten the short end of the stick – the hockey stick? Whatever, that’s a stupid pun.

If that was true, this world he was stuck living in must be one hell of a cautionary tale for the other worlds he gets to peek into in his sleep.

\--

Sometimes he dreamed that he and Sasha and Zhenya and the others managed to lead Russia to Olympic gold. They always did so well at worlds, maybe in a different life they would have been able to sustain that when it really mattered.

Sometimes he dreamed he’d never left Toronto. That the city that had started out wanting him kept wanting him, that he was able to be part of something good, something great. Sometimes he dreamed that he’d helped bring the Stanley Cup to a proud city that hadn’t seen that kind of success in far too long. 

Sometimes he dreamed of New York and Washington, of a different Game 7, of _really_ making a run for it, maybe even winning it all with the Islanders.

\--

Mostly, though? Mostly, he dreamed about Misha.

He dreamed about handing the Cup to Misha, or about Misha handing the Cup to him, whichever way it turned out, whether they were in Toronto or Brooklyn.

He dreamed, so many nights, just simple dreams of playing on a line with Misha again, of the chemistry they had that he had never been able to replicate with anyone else.

He dreamed about the day they went to their agent, told him they wanted to play together again, signed on the same day at the same place, four more years together.

He dreamed that they made it to the end of those four years, and in some of his dreams they stayed with the Islanders and in some of those dreams they went to Vegas together and were a part of building something new and brilliant.

He dreamed that there was another lockout and they went back to the KHL together. Those weren’t as good dreams as the others, but he wasn’t sure if the life he saw in them was better or worse than what he had now, without Misha.

\--

He dreamed of Misha off the ice too, of a life he’d never had the courage to ask for.

His dreams tried to make real the world of that ridiculous video they’d filmed as a PR stunt, a world where they shared an apartment and traveled around the City on a tandem bike.

That apartment had one bedroom, not just because Brooklyn real estate was ridiculous, but because there was no need for another. 

In Kolya’s dreams, that apartment had one bed, and he knew every last detail of every way the two of them fit together on it.

His dream-self could ask Misha’s dream-self about getting married, maybe some day when they retired, maybe some summer during the off-season, maybe the night before they played a game in Vegas.

Or he could say yes to Misha, and in dozens of dreams that question was asked dozens of ways, but always, always answered with a yes.

\--

One of the times they tried to fix his shoulder, he was drug-blurred enough to mumble an ask for Misha instead of Tasha. Tasha was polite enough to pretend she hadn’t noticed, and she kissed his cheek reassuringly and talked to him about their kids.

Because that was his life, that was what was real.

Kolya wondered if Misha’s Kate had ever heard Misha call for Kolya from his hospital bed and try to cover it up by saying he meant Katya, blame it on the language differences, blame it on the hit to the head that had landed Misha there in the first place.

He wondered if, like Tasha, Kate would smile reassuringly and kiss him like a sister and talk about the kids they had somehow managed to create anyway.

He wondered if there were some other life where Tasha and Kate had found each other, found they were meant to be together in that world, just like he and Misha were meant to be together. 

\--

Not every dream was a window into a better world, of course.

There were the nightmares.

The nightmares that one of the times Misha took the wrong kind of hit the wrong way and landed too hard was the time he didn’t get back up again, that Kolya could only watch as the person he loved most was taken away silent and cold.

Nightmares that he tried to go to the hospital to see Misha, was turned away, was taken away to jail or to somewhere worse.

Nightmares that he was honest with Misha about how he felt and what he wanted, only to be rejected, be run from, lose Misha entirely in a way that was somehow more final even than death. 

Nightmares that started out as joyful dreams of a life together, turned dark and frightening because someone who had power over their lives – the league, their team, the passport agency, some hate-filled person on the street with a gun – decided that this was no life for two men to have.

\--

Of course, to the happier lives Kolya dreamed, this _was_ the nightmare:

Misha hit in the head too hard one too many times, being traded to another team specifically to reach the cap floor, making five million dollars to explicitly _not_ play for a team that was nearly a continent away from where Kolya was still trying to play out his contract as best he could.

Sad, knowing smiles in the locker room from a linemate who was in an all-too-similar position.

Kolya himself getting hurt badly enough to be unable to continue the season, seeing nothing left for him in North America, going back to Magnitka to live the life he was supposed to. 

As if his years in Toronto and Brooklyn, with Misha and without him, were insignificant, were themselves the dream Kolya must wake from.


End file.
